BACK

drool‘s back after a 3 week (World Cup, etc.) layoff. Just bits of news
(if that’s what you want to call it) here today.

I suppose these (below) could have been Facebook posts, some of them
even tweets (those kind of annoying 3 or 4 or 5 part tweets). The social
media world has been atomized, we have more and more choices with
most “advances” leading to compression, to more bite-sized bits of info,
stuff we (you) can stuff into our (your) busy schedules. We (I) fall for it,
adapt to each new medium. Our brains (I suppose) adapting faster than
our souls and we become (somehow) stranger and less interesting.

SADCITY by SCOT SOTHERN

STRAYLIGHT is working on a new book . . . SadCity, by Scot Sothern.
Look for it this fall.

A series of photos with texts. Some of the writing directly relates to
the associated image, some doesn’t . . .

ABANDONOne night when I was fifteen this older guy I knew picked me up
at home and drove us to a gas station where we filled up two big
red cans of regular for about a dollar and a quarter. From there
we drove out to to an abandoned farm house on a rocky road. It
was two-story white with a big front porch. We checked all the
rooms for people or anything of value then we doused the walls
top to bottom. I stood on the front porch and threw two lit matches
into a gasoline pool in the center of the living room and then a third
before it caught. It went up in an incredible whoosh and singed
my eyebrows. I wish I had taken pictures.

ON INSTAGRAM

Still working on my Instagram feed. Kind of settling in and finding
what seems, for me, suitable. Go have a look and follow if you want.

Sheets

Bus

Photographer

OFFICIAL OTTAWA

When do you end a project? I could keep shooting OFFICIAL OTTAWA
for a long time, but I have 13 sheets of film left and when that’s gone
I’m gonna call it done.

Arbitrary, but so what? So’s life.

Once it’s finally shot I’ll be editing and sequencing and looking to
commission some essays for the final product. I have always seen
OFFICIAL OTTAWA as a newspaper, so it’s final form will be as a
newsprint publication.

A 2nd EDITION

Jörg Colberg published a review of Back to me. He also has some
words about small publishers and some other foto-books.

Yes, we’re doing a second edition of Back to me. It will be slightly
smaller in size and unsigned, but will contain all the pictures that
were in the first edition.

I suggest you check it out. XXXX. Follow the link to order your copy
of the 2nd edition. This is beautiful, important work.

OTHER THAN THAT . . .

Kind of too busy this week, what with the World Cup and shooting
for money and stuff, for a full-fledged drool.

And, lest you think I’m just climbing on the World Cup bandwagon,
rest assured that both Cin and I are longstanding football (soccer)
nuts. We subscribe to the channel and watch 4 or 5 games a week,
every week. But World Cup time really eats into productivity.

Speaking of climbing on the bandwagon . . . here are a few iPhone
out takes. Pix that didn’t make it to my pretty much brand new
Instagram feed. Tune in there and see what develops yukyukyuk.XXXX

iPhone only, miscellanea, ephemera, no filters.

Gus

Bank Street

Moose hide

Cindy in a field

Lil and Gus

ON INSTAGRAM

I’ve never really owned a cell phone. Sure, way back when, I had a
Motorola Razr, used it sporadically, left it in my car, someone broke
into my car, stole the phone. It took me 3 months to realize it was
missing so I figured I didn’t really need or want one, never replaced it.

Now, 5 or 6 years later I’m the owner of an brand new iPhone. Bought
to do the Instagram thing.

I’m pondering, from a newcomers perspective, just what Instagram
is. What follows will be old news to seasoned IG practitioners, so
feel free to skip it . . . .

First of all, I had no idea what IG was about. I mean, I knew that it
was image-based social media, you can only (mostly) do it from a
smart phone and that it has quite a number of adherents. But that’s
as far as my knowledge went.

My initial thought about doing an IG feed was to use it to show an
actual project, one just for IG (maybe bumped over to Fb). But the
images show up way too small for that, and they’re too fleeting. No,
this is not a platform (as far as I can see) on which to unroll anything
too serious.

Instagram does seem, though, a swell platform on which to throw
up ephemera. And we all know how collections of memorabilia can
become, well, something.

Mom and dad, selfie. 1949.

All collections define the person who aggregates them. It’s just that
some of those definitions seem smarter, more worthwhile, than others.
Of course, what floats my boat may very well leave yours beached, and,
it goes without saying, vice versa. In this, IG is a lot likeTwitter and a bit
like Facebook. My predilections on all these platforms veer more towards
personal truth-telling (whatever that is or may mean), and I tend to get
pissed off at suburban high-jinks/concerns, banter and gossip (not that
I don’t love gossip. Who doesn’t?)

Cindy

So far, I’ve realized that, for me, IG is not the place to “do a project”. The
first few days I was shooting with the iPhone, I spent some time mimicking
what I do with my other cameras (tools) and my usual (as far as that goes)
approach. Didn’t work.

Shooting.

I also decided to not use it to “showcase” work I’ve done with other cameras,
for other projects. Some folks do, but that’s too easy and kind of counter to
what the platform seems to want. (Though, of course, anyone can use any
platform as they see fit. See above.)

Instead I think I’ll just roll with it as a repository of ephemera. Make of it what
you will.